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Biography and Memoir April 2021 Place a hold in the catalog and pick it up at our Drive-Thru window or check it out on the Libby by OverDrive app!
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| The Soul of a Woman: On Impatient Love, Long Life, and Good Witches by Isabel AllendeWhat it is: beloved author Isabel Allende's intimate and lyrical reflections on the role that feminism has played in her life.
Topics include: Allende's career beginnings as a journalist in 1960s Chile; the roadblocks she encountered while attempting to publish her first novel, 1982's The House of the Spirits; aging, sex, and family life.
Who it's for: fans of Allende's work will appreciate this empowering memoir/manifesto and the lessons shared within. |
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Mike Nichols: A Life
by Mark Harris
What it's about: drawing on interviews with such notables as Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks, Mark Harris documents the remarkable creative achievements and private struggles of entertainment wunderkind Mike Nichols.
More on Nichols' career: He directed four hit Broadway plays, picking up the Best Director Tony for three of them. By his mid-30's the first two films he directed, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "The Graduate," were the highest-grossing movies of 1966 and 1967 respectively, and the latter had won him an Oscar for Best Director.
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Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith
by Richard Bradford
What it's about: Honoring the 100th anniversary of her birth, this biography of the acclaimed author of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train focuses on her gay radicalism, her self-destructive personality and cruel treatment of her lovers.
Also by Richard Bradford: Bradford, an English professor at Ulster University, also wrote Martin Amis - The Biography (2012).
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Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells
by Michelle Duster
What it's about: Written by her great-granddaughter, a historical portrait of the boundary-breaking civil rights pioneer includes coverage of Wells’s early years as a slave, her famous acts of resistance and her achievements as a journalist and anti-lynching activist.
More about Ida B.: A founder of the NAACP, Wells was famed as a pioneering journalist and anti-lynching crusader and for refusing to give up her seat on a ladies' train car in 1884 Memphis. The FBI dubbed her "a dangerous negro agitator," but some balance of justice came in 2020 when she was awarded a 2020 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation.
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| Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia SweigWhat it is: a well-researched biography of First Lady Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson that offers fresh insights on her life and legacy.
What sets it apart: This revisionist account positions Johnson as a key player in husband Lyndon B. Johnson's presidential administration, revealing the role she played in shaping his political strategies and ambitions.
Featuring: diary entries the First Lady recorded during her time in the White House. |
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Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America
by Maria Hinojosa
What it is: The Emmy Award-winning journalist and anchor of NPR’s Latino USA documents the story of immigration in America through the human lens of her family’s experiences and her decades in the media.
What reviewers call it: "powerful," "riveting," "defiant" and "illuminating reading in many respects." (Publishers Weekly, Library Journal)
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Bright Precious Thing: A Memoir
by Gail Caldwell
What it's about: the Pulitzer-Prize winning Boston Globe literary critic shares snippets from her life in an empowering nonlinear memoir about feminism; losing a best friend to cancer; suffering sexual assault and harassment; and loving her dogs.
Why you might like it: the memoir chronicles the women’s movement from the 1960s through the #MeToo era to evaluate its impact on the author's feminist pursuits.
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A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape from North Korea
by Ŭn-ju Kim
What it is: an exposé of North Korea's totalitarian regime, in which the author recounts her childhood in North Korea and the harrowing 9-year journey to South Korea and freedom, during which she lived homeless, fell into the hands of Chinese human traffickers, survived a North Korean labor camp and crossed the deserts of Mongolia on foot.
Kirkus Reivews calls it: "An urgent cry for compassion for the author's fellow North Koreans, trapped and strangled of liberty and life."
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| We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy PearlmanWhat it is: a sobering yet hopeful oral history of Syrian refugees' experiences in the aftermath of 2011's Arab Spring protests.
Book buzz: Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal, this eye-opening collection offers a diverse array of perspectives from "a population that meets with too few opportunities to represent itself."
Further reading: For more intimate firsthand insights into the Syrian civil war, pick up Alia Malek's The Home That Was Our Country. |
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| Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body by Rebekah TaussigWhat it is: a witty and engaging memoir about author Rebekah Taussig's life as a wheelchair user, with frank discussions of how disability intersects with issues like sex, dating, self-image, relationships, the media, and more.
Why you should read it: Sitting Pretty is a refreshingly candid and welcome voice in the growing body of literature about disability written by disabled people themselves. |
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Email us at techref@wiltonlibrary.org for more great book recommendations! |
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